dark before the vision
by Glaux
Summary: set during the first war against Voldemort; strange gods, shady deals, and sirius/remus slash. what more could you want, really?
1. Chapter 1

notes notes notes:

wonderful characters do no belong to me, obviously, though every once in a while, i slap my knee and wonder: why didn't i think of that?! will be sirius/remus -- just.. not at the moment. :\ enjoy!

**_dark before the vision_**

part i.

_prologue_

You know this story already. You do, I promise.

Not only do you know it, but you've played it out yourself, in every role imaginable, in every setting, in every time. The problem is that you forget, you see. It's not that the information is gone. You hold on to it yourself; in what Pierre Janet called your _subconsciousness_, and also -- deeper still -- in the coiling memories of your DNA. Forgetting is something that was taught to you.

So, I'll tell it to you again. Even though you already know.

There is a girl, and they keep her in a bell jar, in a locked room in the Department of Mysteries.

It's not an ordinary bell jar. It needs to hold a girl who stands over six-feet tall, and for whom glass would crumble like antique lace. The bearded man can sense the power of the place, even before the boy unlocks the door to let him in. The boy is sickly and has the sort of face that is much too calm, which is a fair indication of insanity. It does not help that, as he opens the door, he says in a hollow voice, "If you feel a rush of panic, leading you into death, you should leave."

Inside, the air is cold and tremulous, full of static electricity. And, there is something beneath that too, a monotone hum, and he can not tell whether it is inside his mind or outside of it. It is old magic, layered and complicated. It has been allowed to grow unchecked, and it is festering. It is coming into the awareness of itself.

The room is circular and undecorated, save for the bronze statue of Shiva in the Western corner, dancing in a aureole of fire. Of his four hands, sculpted into mudras, the bearded man feels that two are the most important. The one which signifies destruction. And, the other, the one which says _do not be afraid_.

He knows the girl has been asking for the statue for a long time. He's made sure she knows it is him who has granted her request.

Even the bell jar is blanketed in dust. Research has been largely abandoned after a long series of failures and strange accidents. The Ministry does not like to admit to its mistakes -- it likes to forget them.

The girl looks up as he enters, but she does move otherwise. She is naked, with her legs crossed, sitting in the lotus position. For a moment, her skin appears luminous and black, but he blinks. When the beaded man reopens his eyes, she is pale again. Her hair is blonde and just barely covers her breasts. He wipes away a streak of dust from the bell jar with the palm of his hand. The boy at the door makes a noise, but then quiets at the bearded man's glare and shuts himself out.

He pushes his glasses up on his nose. "I want you to know that I don't agree with what they have done to you, and I have come to help."

She laughs, and it makes him feel ill. Her tongue falls out of her mouth and grazes her belly. There are things he sees, but he can not be sure of -- like one image superimposed over another. A serpent. A black dog -- no, not a dog, a jackal. Ten faces. Ten arms. A bowl collecting the blood of a man's severed head.

But, these things are not really there. What's there is just a naked girl, a beautiful girl, who echoes him: "Help me."

The Minister had told him he would feel nauseous, but he had not understood. Something in his stomach feels bloated and heavy.

"I want to help you. But, we need your help as well."

"Why did they send you? You do not understand my symbols."

"Everyone else was too afraid."

"And, you are not afraid?"

"I am afraid," he says, "But, I recognize an injustice when I see one. They have imprisoned you here for too long."

"Two hundred years," she says

The old man bows his head. "Two hundred years. Your original captors are all dead."

She rests her chin in the palm of her hand. There is something artificial about her movements. She is not alive in the same sense that he is. "You want to bargain. I was the one who was captured and imprisoned for two centuries. And, now, you're asking me to do you a favor?"

The old man takes off his glasses and cleans them with the hem of his sleeve. He wishes they would just let him sleep. He wishes he would just let himself sleep, without seeing the faces that materialized in the night, faces of the dead and faces of those who were about to die. "I don't pretend to believe it is fair. The truth is -- we need help."

The girl stands up. It is so quick and happens after such a long period of stillness, that it causes him to take a step back, and then cringe at himself. But, she seems closer now. If he leaned in, just an inch, their noses would touch. The space held in her eyes is immense -- a size men were not meant to understand. A space like the distance in-between stars, encompassing him, and the Order, and Voldemort, and England, and the whole Earth.

She knows, he realizes. She knows everything.

"Why should I help you?" she says. "You and your enemies, you cannot do anything to each other that I have not already done. I gave birth to you. And, you must all return to me in the end."

"But, your power is not absolute. You remain trapped here, by men."

She does not look angry, at this, but sad. "No, we are not infallible. We love and we hate and we make mistakes, just as you do." She pauses for a moment, and then continues, "How do you know I wouldn't destroy all of you, once you let me go?"

"Because that's not how your stories go."

She smiles and it is terrible. "In India, there is a hill where they sacrifice goats, and chickens, and sometimes little children, in my name. They chop their heads off and the blood soaks into the ground. That's what it takes for a god to grow. Stories, and time, and blood. I should like to see that hill again.

"But, I can't help you in the way you'd like. The world has changed in two hundred years. I know that, even though I've been locked in this room, in the darkness. When men have atom bombs, and genetic engineering, they realize that they do not need the gods around anymore."

"But, you're talking about Muggles. Not Wizards."

"Wizards have always had magic. They have never needed the gods."

"Are they the same thing?"

"No," she says. "They have the same source, but they are different."

Her cheekbones are like half-shells of abalone. She looks both old and young. "I will help you, because I do not want to die in this room. I can give you a child."

He lets a long breath drawl out of him. "I don't understand."

"My daughter," she says. "Her symbol is the moon, who dies and is reborn. Her nature is also dual. One of her aspects is hunger. Another is bliss. She can be yours, but I will need two things. I will need a man to be her father. It will be better if he is pale. If he has a round face. He must be tied to the moon.

"The second thing I need is a promise. You must let her forget who she is. You must allow her to think she is one of you. If she does not love you, she will not fight for you.

"You will like my daughter," she says, and smiles again. Her teeth are like those of a dog. "She will devour whatever lies in your path, Albus, my friend. Her appetite is insatiable."

He has the feeling he has just heard a curse. The kind that will act slowly, almost imperceptibly, but the seed of death has been planted already. He remembers the words of the boy who unlocked the door and wonders if now is the time to heed his advice. "We need insurance, you see," he mutters. His own voice is foreign to him. "If Voldemort destroys us all, what hope will there be?"

The tongue presses itself against the glass and runs upwards. "Bring me a man," she says. And, then she adds, "Make sure he is on your side. She will belong to him, not you. She will never belong to you, remember that."

"Yes," he says. He hears the boy cough on the other side of the door. "But, how do I know she won't devour us as well?"

The girl cocks her head to the side and her belly twitches when she laughs. "You should know. That's not how my stories go."


	2. Chapter 2

dark before the vision

part i

chapter i

This is Remus John Lupin, as you will see him today.

He looks hungry, but sharp; he has the kind of eyes that scan a room thoroughly, cataloging objects, mapping out their places. It's this prodigious memory that can perfectly recall the composition of a chess board on a particular Thursday morning, two and a half years ago. Or the name of a sea monster, which he gleamed from a library book when he was thirteen. He is weighed down with information, hunching over, his sleeves falling down to his knuckles.

"You wanted to see me?," he says. He's been pulled, suddenly, from an assignment in Cambridge. His oxfords are scuffed and the canvass bag over his shoulder is filled with books and papers, covered in esoteric symbols. He has to search for a full minute before he finds a pack of cigarettes in-between them, and he ignores Dumbledore's look when he chooses one and lights it. They both know it's not like him. But, he's nervous nowadays. His fingertips are yellow with nicotine stains and his filters are indented with teeth marks. All of England has the atmosphere of a jail house -- full of suppressed violence and paranoia.

"Any luck in Cambridge?" Dumbledore asks.

There is no need to answer. Everything, everywhere, has been going badly. Even on the quiet streets of the university town, he had caught the Dark Mark, graffitied on a wall. He had been there for two weeks, and no one had covered it up.

Remus sighs. He reads the label on his packet of cigarettes. He is a compulsive reader, which can sometimes be as bad a habit as chewing on his filters.

Dumbledore smiles, but it is empty. "You're right. Don't answer that."

He walks to the bookshelf and pulls out a leather-bound volume. They are at the house in St. Mary Cray, which belongs to the Order, but Remus has never before been to. It is a decrepit plot of land -- outside, gypsy women steal fruit from trees that don't belong to anyone. Still, even this place, on the outskirts of the London, seems anxious, restless.

"Have you ever heard of William Lark?" says Dumbledore. He opens the book at random, touching only the edges of the pages. Remus nods. He waves his hand as he talks, so that the smoke aligns strangely around his face.

"British anthropologist. Did most of his work on folklore, mythology, that sort of thing."

"I knew I could trust you to have paid attention in History of Magic. Do you remember how he died?"

Remus shakes his head. It is not a lie, not exactly. They had never covered it in school, but he's heard the story. He just can't understand what it has to do with anything.

"It's to do with this book, actually. It's called the Kali Kautuvam, and for a thousand years no one believed it actually existed.

"Lark was obsessed with the idea, present in many of these old religions, that the gods could be summoned and placed under human control. Of course, we have nothing like this in Western magic, and most considered it a curiosity, but not a serious pursuit. Despite the discouragement of his colleagues, the idea consumed him. He poured all his money and time into his research, and in the end -- he became poor, he lost his family, and no one would hire him.

"He disappeared from Britain for nearly a decade, rumor has it to India, and when he returned he was a changed man. Rich, popular, adored by women. He moved into a flat in Mayfair, where he threw extravagant parties and seances. Spiritualism, of course, was in fashion, and these young, bored aristocrats became fascinated with Lark and his ideas. So much so that he was able to talk them into forming -- and remember, this is mostly rumor -- a secret society which they called the Thugees."

"What happened?" asks Remus. He flattens his cigarette into a candleholder. His hair is untidy and losing color at the corner. Dumbledore feels sorry for him, but he is wise enough not to let it show.

"This carried on for some time. Neighbors reported hearing strange voices, seeing lights. Bloodletting, orgies, animal sacrifice -- it's all quite cliche, really. Until Lark is found murdered in his own home. Decapitated.

"Some say it was the Thugees, gone mad from their rituals. But, as usual, its the stranger stories that manage to prevail.

"That, of course, being, that he finally succeeded in his attempts to call up the gods."

Remus is an academian. He likes evidence, he likes equations. "That's crazy," he says.

"Yes, it is, isn't it?"

He knows Dumbledore well enough to know that this isn't a question. He's goading Remus to react. It must be a popular technique, he thinks, but Sirius does he same thing to him all the time.

Dumbledore hands him the book, and he leafs through it carefully. The original text is in sanskrit, but English translations are provided, handwritten, in the margins. The scrawl is that of a madman; varying wildly, so that it could have been written by two different people, if it were not for the eccentricities that connected it. "These are spells," says Remus. Then, he corrects himself, "No. It's one spell."

"It's a manual."

"For summoning Kali Ma."

"Yes."

"You're trying to tell me that --"

"Lark found the book in Nepal. In a monastery, nestled in a remote part of the Himalayas. No outsider had been there in over two hundred years, and the monks claimed they had been guarding the book even longer than that. They say it was written by Vyasa, who compiled the Vedas. "

"And, they just gave it to him?"

"No. Undoubtedly, it was a bloody affair." Dumbledore pauses. He takes off his glasses and cleans them, and thinks of a beautiful naked woman, in a cold, basement room. "I need you to read the book for me."

Remus begins to open his mouth, but Dumbledore cuts him off. "I need you to read it carefully. Books are strange things, you see. They are like doors. They won't open for everyone. And, in this case, I have been refused."

What Remus wants to say is: you called me out of Cambridge for this? For your cryptic answers? For some nutter who thought he could call up the gods and take over the world? He feels bitter, angry. It's not like him. The full moon is three nights away and the animal beneath his skin is bristling with hunger and excitement. He takes a breath. "I don't understand."

Dumbledore pauses. He can be like an actor, sometimes, swapping about the words in his head, searching for the most convincing combination. Remus knows this, but he trusts him. He loves him. He would die for him and for his cause (and probably will, he thinks, in the back of his mind). "I know that. But, you will. This is of the upmost importance to the Order, even if is doesn't seem so now. I need you to read it. To see if there's something I've missed."

"You've tried it."

Dumbledore doesn't answer his question. "Can you meet me back, here, in a week?"

Remus nods. "All right. But, why me? Wouldn't one of the professors be better for this?"

And then, Dumbledore mutters something which Remus doesn't quite understand. But, he is so dazed by the meeting that he doesn't stop to consider it until later. "Because it asked for you."

He apparates back to their flat in Lambeth. It's a cheap area, although Sirius could have afforded something nicer (and almost everything was). Still, Remus thinks he likes playing the part of the exiled heir -- but, not enough to keep from indulging in the Vincent Black Shadow parked on the roof top.

He is asleep on the couch when Remus works through the security spells and appears in the living room. His fingers are still half-holding a cold cup of coffee. A cigarette has transformed into a long, cylindrical piece of ash.

Their view is of the condemned hotel across the street, but when the weather is right, light can filter through, in a sharp downwards slope -- turned impossible shades of red and orange by London pollution. Remus looks at Sirius's face, and the diamonds of light falling unto his hair, and feel a strange kind of pain in his chest. He closes his eyes.

Remus is not used to having things, and so he doesn't. Except for the ziggurats of books stacked up against the walls, and the record player that they've used so much, it even speaks when it's off, in a ghostly white noise that they can hear beneath their breaths. Everything else belongs to Sirius. The white guitar propped against the sofa. The half-empty bottle of gin on the kitchen counter. Even the records, strewn across the floor, printed with pictures of men who look like extraterrestrials, with their long eyelashes and translucent skin.

Remus kneels down and presses his mouth to Sirius's forehead. He stirs, but it takes a moment before he half-opens his eyes and mutters, "Hey."

"Hey yourself," says Remus, and his head is drawn down, his throat kissed. He presses his head against Sirius's neck.

("You act like a goddamned animal, Moony," he had said once. They were laughing, drunk.

"Well, so do you."

"Mm," said Sirius. "I know. But, I don't lie to myself about being a mongrel.")

"What did Dumbledore say?" he asks. Sirius, too, has been away for the last week, with James, and when he'd come back he hadn't wanted to talk about it. He has a gash across his ribs that suggests: whatever it was, didn't go well. Sirius has always tried to act detached, bored, confident. But, lately, Remus has noticed a darkness beneath his eyes -- pupils that dart about quickly, suspiciously, like a beetle scurrying across a floor. Remus kisses him again.

"He wants me to study a book." Remus doesn't lie, but for a moment, he has the strange urge to.

"Ah, he's got the right man for the job, then. You're doomed. You're going the spend the rest of your life all hunchbacked and pale, you know."

Remus smiles. He mutters, "Let's hope so."

They get Chinese take out, and then make love. It's not like it was a year ago -- full of nervous laughter and light-headedness. They know each other now, as well as two people can, and they also know that this world is a world of of cruelty and loss. Their bodies are full of love and desperation, and when it's over, they cling to each other in the darkness. With all the lights out, it is easy to forget there is a city looming over them, closing in.

Remus tries not to think about Dumbledore's damned book, still laying in his canvass bag on the floor of the living room. He almost succeeds.

When he sleeps, he dreams of a four-armed woman, naked, riding atop a jackal. Around her neck, she wears a garland of human limbs. In her hand, he holds a human head.

Remus wakes, jolted, when he realizes it is his.


End file.
